Search All 1 Records in Our Collections

Welcome to the new Collections Search. You can still use the previous version of the site at this link.

The Museum’s Collections document the fate of Holocaust victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others through artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories, and more. Search below to view digital records and find material that you can access at our library and at the Shapell Center.

The bodies of prisoners lie on the ground in the newly liberated Nordhausen concentration camp.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 02045

The bodies of prisoners lie on the ground in the newly liberated Nordhausen concentration camp.

The original Signal Corps caption reads, "U.S TROOPS OPEN GATES OF V-BOMB HORROR CAMP. Nazi weapons of death made by dying slaves is the grim story of Nordhausen, Reich center for V-bomb production which was captured by troops of the First U.S. Army April 10, 1945. Hundreds of dead and dying lay in the same beds in a nearby slave camp where, according to the liberated, 9,000 lost their lives in 1944. The American officer in charge immediately orderd the leading citizens of Nordhausen to bury the rotting and skeleton-like dead, choosing a burial site on a hillside overlooking the V-bomb factory where the slave owrkers had been slowly murdered. The factory, assembly plant for V-1 and V-2 weapons, was a series of deep underground tunnels. Three main tunnels were connected with 42 smaller ones. Until May 1944, workers were never allowed outside. When the slaves, who lavored in 18-hour shifts, became too weak to work, they were loaded into box cars and never seen again.

PNA EA 62971

THIS PHOTO SHOWS: The emaciated bodies of Russian, Polish, French, Belgian and Italian prisoners were piled in a heap, like sticks of wood, at the Norhausen slave labor camp. Forced to work for the Nazi was machine, they starved to death or were shot. U.S. Signal Corps Photo ETO-HQ-45-32683SERVICED BY LONDON OWI TO LIST BCERTIFIED AS PASSED BY SHAEF CENSOR

Learn about over 1,000 camps and ghettos in Volume I and II of this encyclopedia, which are available as a free PDF download. This reference provides text, photographs, charts, maps, and extensive indexes.